The present invention relates to fire and smoke protective devices and more particularly to a protective face and head mask providing protection against fire and smoke inhalation in the event of a fire condition.
The various types of apparatus presently used to provide protection to victims of fire, smoke, noxious fumes and similar emergency conditions, such as gas masks, oxygen masks and the like, are usually unavailable to building occupants, and certainly not all of them, when they are trapped in a building. Such conventional protective apparatus is clearly too expensive, too cumbersome to store and too complicated for the untrained person to use under emergency conditions when the building occupants suddenly find themselves under severe emotional stress. Furthermore, even if such known protective equipment could be made available to the building occupants, because of the relatively complicated construction and mechanical operation thereof, such equipment would have to be periodically checked and maintained to ensure reliable operation thereof when needed. Of course, such conventional protective apparatus is so expensive and cumbersome so as to effectively rule out its use on a mass basis by building occupants.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a single use protective device operative to provide the wearer with protection against fire, smoke and noxious fume inhalation.
It is a further object to provide a protective device of the character described which is very economical to manufacture, and compact in its storage and operative conditions respectively.
It is yet another object of the present invention to provide a protective device of the character described which requires no maintenance in its storage condition and which can be simply and quickly rendered from its storage into its operative condition.